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Armored Personnel Carrier
The Armored Personnel Carrier (also known as APC) is a Combine armored transport used by Overwatch and Civil Protection units. Overview The Combine APC is first seen in the first Half-Life 2 chapter and first seen in combat in the Canals. Use In urban areas, APCs are used to rapidly deploy Civil Protection teams to trouble spots. Outside the cities, both Civil Protection and Overwatch forces use APCs extensively to patrol isolated areas (such as the Canals and the Coast). APCs are also used by Combine Overwatch along the Coast to patrol and transport Combine Soldiers to areas in need of maintenance (such as reactivating Antlion restricting devices). They can also serve as an electrical generator, as seen along Highway 17 where an APC is powering a forcefield which prevents the player from advancing with the Buggy until the APC has been pushed far enough away to have the cable disconnected. To achieve this, its parking wedges must be pulled out so that it will fall from the cliff. Weaponry APCs are armed with guided rocket launchers and a mounted Pulse Rifle. The missiles are fired through tubes which can be seen in-between the two front platings. It is unknown how the mounted pulse rifle is operated, as there seems to be no trigger for it and there are no crew that can be seen manning the weapon directly. Tactics *Although powerful, they are vulnerable to damage from certain weapons. Hand grenades, SMG grenades, rockets, and the Hunter-Chopper gun mounted on the Airboat all damage the APC to varying degrees. As the APC takes damage, pieces of its armor start to fall off, until it eventually disintegrates. *APCs can be seen being airlifted into areas by Dropships. Like the Dropship Containers, they can also be destroyed before the Dropship reaches its destination. *Much like how a Gunship can shoot down the player's missiles, the APC missiles can be shot down with the Airboat's pulse gun. Behind the scenes *Since originally the Combine were to recycle and reuse human materials for their needs, they were also to reuse existing military vehicles from Earth, trains (which is still the case in the final versionFile:Trainstation engines.jpg), school buses, tanks or APCs, most of which can be identified. When this concept was dropped, an entirely new model was created by Viktor Antonov in the current Combine style. The earliest APCs consist in four different static brushes apparently based on the French VAB (an amphibious APC entered in service in 1976) or another existing APC. The first one is a basic troop carrier with no particular equipment.A simplified version, with rubber tires, can be found in the map "e3_seafloor". Two others are equipped with heavy cannons, one of which has six wheels instead of four.WC mappackSee "VanceHQ.vmf", "c17_01_15.vmf" or "train_depot06.vmf" for these three versions. The fourth type is a flying version, simply nicknamed "Shuttle", equipped with wings and two rear reactors emitting red lights.Pairs can be seen flying in "c17_01_15.vmf" or "sky_walk10.vmf".WC mappack The first knownSince the first trailer for Half-Life 2 shows in "e3_terminal" what seems to be the first brush APC turned into a model. model to be subsequently created is apparently based on the Russian BRDM-2 (also amphibious).As seen in the map "e3_terminal.vmf" in the WC mappack. It made it into the canon as it can be seen crushing a car in the Half-Life 2 chapter Anticitizen One. The last known previous version is the one used in the playable Half-Life 2 Beta, which is slightly different (the front mudguards are more covering the wheels, like in the original concept art, and the bodywork is rusty).Playable ''Half-Life 2'' Beta *The armored fighting vehicles arsenal was also to include what appears to be Israeli Merkavas,WC mappack American Bradleys''Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar'' (the two mostly used by the Conscripts) and what appears to be an American SWAT truck.Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar *The APC was originally a player-driven vehicle. Playtesters found that the slow movement was not as satisfying as the Buggy, and it was recast and used by the Combine forces only.Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar In the chapter Point Insertion in the Xbox 360 port of Half-Life 2, remains of that feature can still be found: when the player jumps from the rooftops down to where the APCs are (with god mode enabled), it is possible to drive them after they have finished their course. The screen turns beige and the controls for it show up. Gallery File:Apc brush1.jpg|The classic brush VAB APC. File:Apc brush2.jpg|The cannon-mounted brush VAB APC. File:Apc brush3.jpg|The cannon-mounted, triple axle brush VAB APC (with misplaced textures). File:Apc brush shuttle.jpg|The flying brush VAB APC, or "Shuttle". File:Merkava.jpg|The brush Merkava. File:Combine truck.jpg|Truck, likely based on a SWAT truck, which is also an Armored Personnel Carrier (this piece of concept art was possibly based on a brush). File:Apc first model.jpg|The BRDM-2 APC first model. File:D3 c17 06a old apc.jpg|The BRDM-2 APC as seen in the Half-Life 2 chapter Anticitizen One. File:APC beta.jpg|The current APC model, playable Half-Life 2 Beta version. Trivia *The APC is not a NPC and has no AI. It is only a scripted model that has a few map-only entities. *The APC was mentioned as an example for creating vehicles in the Spore Prima Official Game Guide. The example is called the "Combined SPC", and in its description it notes "...make sure that its targets don't escape with even half a life." List of appearances *''Half-Life 2'' *''Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar'' *''Half-Life 2: Episode One'' *''Half-Life 2: Episode Two'' Notes and references External links * Category:Combine Vehicles Category:Half-Life 2 Category:Half-Life 2: Episode One Category:Half-Life 2: Episode Two